


Five Proposals

by beetle



Category: Firefly
Genre: Firefly AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 04:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five proposals Jayne Cobb has made and received. Two drabbles and three rag-tag ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Proposals

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I didn't steal nothin'.

I

  
  
Freight ships always needed strong, unskilled labor to replace them what'd jumped ship unexpected.  
  
  
Jayne, at 6'4, 220 pounds of muscle--not cursed with over-schoolin' (Harlynn's the brains in the Cobb family, takes after the Grandpa Jayne barely remembers) qualified as that.  
  
  
Plan was to live on one of them Core worlds, get jobs . . . get married. But the plan fubar'd. Her daddy sussed what was blowing in the weeds . . . spirited her offworld.   
  
  
Her name was Sarah Waterman, and Jayne loved her fiercely.   
  
  
 _Don't take on, boy,_  drunk Uncle Quent liked to say.  _Baby prolly weren't yours no kinda way._  
  
  


II

  
  
It was stupid, is what. Gorramn jack move, wanting his happy ending after all this time.  
  
  
But even eight years doing welding on his pissant Border homeworld ain't erased the idea that he's got a family and a life waiting for him somewhere, off in the Black. It's become the thought he thinks before he falls dog-tired into his bed, and the thought he wakes up having, as solid as the beat of his heart.  
  
  
 _My family's waitin'_ , Jayne knows, and don't talk about it to no one. Not even to Harlynn.  
  
  
Certainly not his Ma or Pa.  
  
  
It takes a lotta doin', and a lotta money to find them, but he does. And when he's got a little more coin besides saved up, he buys a decent suit, a decent ring, and a silly, shiny, noisy toy that any kid'd like. Spends what money's left booking passage on a slow freighter without telling nobody what he's after. . . .  
  
  
Only to return home three months later, a day behind the wave he sent. Minus the stupid ring, and carrying a undersized, dark-eyed mute don't look a gorramn thing like him, or any Cobb that ever was.  
  
  
“Well!” His Ma opens the front door when he stumps up the porch, silent, grim and bone-weary. But no more so than the boy he carries--who don't hardly stop coughing 'cause of the Damp Lung, but don't let go of his toy or of Jayne, for that matter.  
  
  
There're tears in her eyes, but his Ma's smiling, and the kid perks up a bit. Just a bit. Almost kinda smiles, and anyone could tell straight off his pinched little face ain't used to it.  
  
  
“Well,” Ma says again, opening her arms wide. “Here you both are--this handsome young gentleman must be Matty . . . welcome home!”  
  
  


III

  
  
“What're you gonna do with your share?” Jayne asks.  
  
  
Stitch takes a swig from the bottle and coughs some. Passes it to Jayne who does the same, only without all that coughing.  
  
  
“Hell,” Stitch says, nudging Jayne's leg. “Like to get me a couple small ships. Start a freight company like my old man. Only off-Rim.”  
  
  
“In the gorramn  _Core_?!” Jayne snorts, spraying 'shine all over them both. Stitch laughs and nudges his leg again. Jayne takes another gulp that don't help his throat none 't'all. “Gonna let all that money make you sissified an' soft, eh, Hessian?”  
  
  
“Aw, not hardly.” He's smiling, and gazing thoughtful-like at the ceiling when Jayne glances over at him.  
  
  
Ain't easy to offend ol' Stitch, and that's part of what makes them good partners.  
  
  
The sexin' ain't too bad, neither.  
  
  
“Call it whatcha like, Jayne, but sometimes . . . a man gets tired of crime an' guns, runnin' an' whores. Sometimes all he wants is the things he ran away from: a world to settle on and place in it. A home, respectability. A good life, and to share that life with a partner he can trust and get along with.”  
  
  
Pale, pale eyes meet Jayne's and Stitch grins real wide: white, white teeth in a handsome, weathered face. He ain't a bit shy about stroking Jayne where the stroking's good. "Reckon you and I get on pretty well."  
  
  
Jayne may be dumb, but one thing he ain't is stupid. He looks away and blames the awful churning in his belly on the rotgut they been sipping. Finishes the bottle in one long swallow and tosses it in the corner of their cheap rent-room.  
  
  
“So what about you? Whatcha gonna do with your half of the take, Citizen Cobb?” Ol' Stitch don't _never_  take offense at  _nothing_  . . . but there's something breaky in his voice that don't match the ease of his hand. That Jayne  _definitely_  don't wanna have to see in his eyes. “Lemme guess: whores 'n' guns?”  
  
  
“'S'ere anything else?” Jayne asks, and leaves it at that. Stitch  _don't_  need to know two thirds of Jayne's take and more will go home to his family. To his . . . to Matty.  
  
  
Stitch don't need to  _know_  family's all that'll ever matter to Jayne, even if he's maybe starting to suss it out for himself.  
  
  
The quiet--usually easy between them--draws out uncomfortable-like. Till Jayne rolls on top of Stitch, pins him good, and takes him again with one quick thrust.  
  
  
“Tian xiao de,” Stitch swears, breathing hard, eyes all wide and staring straight up. Then for awhile, ain't no sounds other than the creaking of the gorramn bed and Stitch's head sometimes hitting the headboard.  
  
  
He don't once stop staring at the ceiling, though he does blink a lot. Bites his lip bloody when he comes, but don't make a sound.  
  
  
Jayne grunts and comes a moment later. Soon after, he's asleep.  
  
  
By noon the next day, they're on Higgin's Moon.  
  
  


IV

  
  
When the Doc asks, Jayne's startled more than a little, and nearly knocks the dermal mender flying. As it is, a previously untorn bit of skin is scored real good.  
  
  
“Ta ma de! Be carefuller, gorramnit!” Jayne snaps, poking warily at newly-healed--and newly-abraded skin.  
  
  
“Don't be such a baby,” Simon says, smiling in that pretty-knowing way he has. The one that puts Jayne in mind of the moon-brained crazy girl what flies Serenity, now. “And stop poking at it. I told you not to flail around when I'm using the dermal mender.”  
  
  
“ _Wasn't_  flailin' around till you asked--what it was you asked!”  
  
  
“I asked what you thought about marriage. You still haven't answered me,” Simon chides, and that smile turns into something that ain't moony 't'all. Is mostly stupid and toothy. Excited.  
  
  
Jayne supposes he's just lucky he didn't lose a chunk off his hand. “Well, why in good gorramn wouldja wanna know  _that_  for?”  
  
  
The Doc puts down the dermal mender and shoves his hands in his pocket. Stares at his shiny shoes. “For the same reason I'd do something as kuang zhe as dropping to one knee to present a ridiculous, not-nearly-good-enough ring to the angry, scowling merc in my med-bay.”  
  
  
And Simon suddenly drops gracefully--face shining like he swallowed a candle--to one knee, and all Jayne can do is stare.  
  
  
  
“Forgive me my artlessness, I've . . . never done this before. But then, I've never known anyone like you. And while at one time, I might have counted myself lucky to say that, now I can only be thankful that I  _do_  know you. And that somehow, against all odds--and some might say all the laws of god and nature, we wound up sharing a bunk.” Simon fumbles a large platinum ring out of his pocket and offers it to Jayne with a shaking hand. “I love you, Jayne Cobb. I'm  _in love_  with you--madly so, and I want to spend the rest of my life snarking, rutting, fighting, and laughing with you. Only you.”  
  
  
Stunned--but being a man of action rather than words--Jayne reaches out in the silence. Takes the ring with a hand that does  _not_  shake. Doesn't bite the ring, but holds it up to the light.  
  
  
It ain't plate, it's  _solid_. Heavy, and plain, but pleasing to the eye for no particular reason.  
  
  
“Is this some kinda joke, Doc?” Jayne laughs, nervous-like his own self. Some of the shine in Simon's face dims just a little, and that's all the answer Jayne needs. Is enough to make his stomach churn in a way it hasn't for years.  
  
  
“No, ape-man, it's no joke.” He's so earnest, and awkward and . . .  _something_. Something that makes Jayne ache in places he can't even name. “I love you. Will you marry me?”  
  
  
For a moment--just a moment, and only because he's surprised--he thinks it over. Thinks about the way Simon smiles at him when he wakes up, and sometimes burns him breakfast. About how he's always interested in hearing about Jayne's family and childhood, though Jayne's careful not to tell him the half of it.  
  
  
Then he thinks about Sarah, little Matty, and Stitch . . . all the people he's let down, left behind or downright betrayed. It ain't never pretty when someone halfway decent gets jobbed by someone like . . . well, someone like him. But for that to happen to  _Simon_ \--if  _Jayne_  were responsible for putting him through that kinda hurt. . . .  
  
  
He shakes his head once, and watches that shine go right out of Simon. “Look, I like you, Doc, but just because we been . . . borrowin' trouble don't mean we oughtta go an' buy it, you get me?”  
  
  
“I . . . I thought I did,” Simon says softly, looking pole-axed and miserable. “I thought we got each other, that we--”  
  
  
“You thought wrong,” Jayne snaps. Wouldn't do neither of them no good to hear what the Doc _thought_ , only confuse matters more. “We have fun together . . . but I ain't the marryin' type--ain't the type anyone  _ought_ ta marry. 'Specially someone like you.”   
  
  
“I don't happen to agree with that assessment,” Simon says stiffly, and Jayne snorts.  
  
  
“You wouldn't, just to be ornery. But you'll realize quickish you can do a gorramn sight better than--”  
  
  
“Don't. Don't . . . patronize me. You said no, and I'll respect your decision.” Anger darkens Simon's voice, makes his nostrils flare for a moment. Then he's just poleaxed again, and Jayne knows it's time to get gone, before he says something stupid, like,  _what the hell? I'll marry you._  
  
  
He flexes his hand. Though the spot the dermal mender scraped is still a mite twingy and red, there's no muscle-pain. Well enough, then. “We done, Doc?”  
  
  
For a long time, Simon stares stone-faced at the ring on Jayne's palm. When them dark blue eyes finally drift back to Jayne's, they're very calm.  
  
  
“Yes, Jayne. I'd say we're done.”  
  
  
The Doc stands up slowly, closed off and very, very pale. He picks up the dermal mender and Jayne swallows. Opens his mouth, and what comes out isn't what he means: “Ain'tcha gonna take yer ring back?”  
  
  
The Doc shakes his head and steps around the bed.  
  
  
“It's useless go se. Toss it, or sell it, I don't care,” he says, his voice gone polite and brittle. “You shouldn't need a follow-up for the hand, but see me if it gives you any trouble in the future.”  
  
  
“Will do.” Jayne closes his eyes for a moment and listens to the homey sound of Simon shifting papers on his desk.  
  
  
When that gets too hurtsome he leaves, the ring clenched tight in his twinging hand.  
  
  


V

  
  
He wakes to ache-laced disorientation.  
  
  
He has no idea why he's in the med-bay--can't feel much below his sternum in that strange, cold way that bespeaks strong drugs, rather than actual paralysis. When he tries to move, reality spins and lurches. A million knives pierce his abdomen, but not before he notices the large hand holding his own.  
  
  
He'd know that hand fresh out of his grave . . . knows the heavy, simple ring adorning it--two years of careful avoidance notwithstanding--for the unequivocal  _yes_  it is.  
  
  
“Rest easy, Doc,” Jayne whispers roughly, squeezing Simon's hand.  
  
  
Simon smiles. And rests easy.


End file.
